The question of whether McCain is or is not a conservative is indeed valid and relevant to the thread.

As the majority of the US electorate are surely conservative, he would be polling higher if he properly reflected conservative values, ideas and principles.

Clearly, many American conservatives agree with me when I question McCain's conservative credentials.

Some moderate conservatives will vote for Obama, while other conservative voters, both moderate and otherwise, will stay at home or vote for a third party candidate.

Very true, in my opinion. I think it's easy to forget how much the "base" loathed McCain back at the beginning of the year. And how well thought of he was among many Democrats.

I really do think his decision to try to win over the base was a mistake. It goes against his image as a "straight talker" and it turned of the indepenents he needed as well moderate Republicans. In a different year, under different circumstances he could have run this type of campaign and done well.

1.Being 72. Perhaps his mental age of 72 is more damaging than his chronological age of 72. There are some 72 year olds that still can pass for 62 or 52 by virtue of their personality and attitude. McCain is not one of them. He has had trouble relating to the 20-something, 30-something, and in some cases even the 40-something crowd. But I don't know if I can really blame McCain for that. It's not his fault he's 72, it's just the way it is.

2.Being up against a phenomenon in Obama. In February and March, when McCain's status as presumptive nominee was new, he was clearly gearing his campaign toward Hilary. His campaign wanted Hilary. He did NOT want to go up against Barack Obama, and everyone knew it. In Obama, he found someone who was his polar opposite in every way, and someone whose success thus far had been an amazing thing to watch - a phenomenon. Some have called it a movement. It was McCain's bad luck that Obama beat Hilary.

This in his control:

1.Not being able to decide if he wanted the far right or the independents. For the last 3-4 years he has been playing this game of pandering to the far right neo-con base out of one side of his mouth while telling the 'real' conservatives and independents that he's still the straight-talking Maverick out of the other side of his mouth. I don't know if the neo-cons are truly buying it, and the 'real' conservatives and independents certainly aren't buying it. It made and is making the campaign look schizophrenic, two-faced without shame, or a combination of the two. It's a unique position because candidates don't usually have to campaign so much to their own base. But ultimately, even given the unusual circumstance, this was bad strategy for the McCain campaign. If you play one role while talking to the base, and then turn around and play another while talking to independents, both groups are going to see it and feel alienated and, to an extent, lied to.

2.Hiring Rove/Rove's people, aka going negative. Just a bad move. America is not in the mood for this. The relentless pushing of supposed associations and the stretch of saying these associations are reason to call Obama's judgement into question, that Obama is friends with terrorists. The blatant misleading ads, lines, and soundbytes about how Obama's tax/healthcare plan will effect us and how McCain's will effect us. The insistence of bringing up stuff like the fact that Obama voted against funding the troops when they know damn well that it was about a timeline and that McCain himself voted against a similar bill. And then the incredulous seriousness with which McCain always denies having ever said anything untrue or misleading even when it's been proven everywhere over and over again that he did or that his running mate did or that his surrogates did. On and on and on. And on a certain level it also reeks of hypocrisy, because McCain himself said eight years ago that there was a special place in hell for these people(Rove and his ilk).

3.Picking Palin. Enough said. A horrendous error in judgement.

4.George Bush. Bush's presidency is not McCain's fault. But McCain could have done a better job of dissociating himself from Bush over the last few years. He had to have known for a good long while beforehand that he intended to run in 2008 and he had to have known very well that the further he got away from Bush, the better his prospects would be. Maybe he didn't actually anticipate getting past the primaries, I don't know. Whatever the case, the ability of Obama's campaign and of everyone else to continually show that McCain has supported too many of the policies of a president with the lowest approval rating in our nation's history to be comfortable has hurt McCain's campaign.

5.The Economy. It's killed him. More specifically, his own reaction to the economic crises has killed him. In the wake of this, he has not been a very convincing leader.

I think McCain has been doing okay, but he tries to pander to the left too much and is afraid of looking partisan when the Democrats obviously are. It seems like he's fighting harder now but what he couldn't foresee was a stock market crash happening during the campaign. He was way ahead before the crash. Most people kick out whoever is there (president) and replace them with the opposite party. McCain can't do much about that.

It's good that he's attacking more. Also they have large rallies where they can talk to the people without media filters. This helps. The battle in the end will be getting the base interested in voting. It doesn't matter what it says in the polls if people don't vote the results can be skewed.

To be honest Sarah Palin has excited the conservative base. If McCain picked Liberman it would be a total wipeout. Most conservatives look at her as a Reaganite and McCain as a moderate. She was a great choice. It's the reason he is still in the race.

I was very disappointed in McCain's campaign. I had, admittedly rather naively, hoped that these two would actually discuss issues and the proper direction of the country to come. lol. I'm so :cute" sometimes. I just wanna ruffle the hair my widdle head.

Once I heard he had adopted the same people that Bush used I was done with him.

He constantly talks about reaching across the aisle and many Republicans look at him as a moderate. By adding Sarah Palin he was able to reenergize the conservative base otherwise a choice like Liberman would sink him with his own party. If you step too far away from your party you lose a lot of votes.

He constantly talks about reaching across the aisle and many Republicans look at him as a moderate. By adding Sarah Palin he was able to reenergize the conservative base otherwise a choice like Liberman would sink him with his own party. If you step too far away from your party you lose a lot of votes.

This is true. It may come back to what was discussed among the pundits early this year during the primaries that the Republicans just didn't have a lot of great candidates to choose from.

He constantly talks about reaching across the aisle and many Republicans look at him as a moderate.

Actually being a moderate is different from "pandering to the other side," though. Pandering (with reference to politics) generally implies that a candidate doesn't in truth believe in what they're saying or supporting, and may revert to their true colors once elected. Do you think he is not, in fact, a moderate?

I realize I am only passing word of mouth, but a prof I chat with frequently is American and politically involved, so obviously we've discussed this a lot.
He does lean on the conservative side, and was quite prepared to vote McCain. He seemed to hold some genuine respect for the man. And this is not the type of guy who offers such praise easily.
However, the nail in the coffin for him was Palin. He said the minute he picked her, he began to seriously question what the man was thinking. And has now resigned himself to voting Obama.

I can only guess at some of his thinking, but I get the feeling he really thought McCain could be capable and have the balls to bring about some change, and run a competent presidency and foriegn policy. But Palin, plus some other events that he hasn't clarified to me, seemed to indicate to him that this was not the direction McCain was headed in, and that he would only be more of the same.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Irvine511

in my opinion, in the minds of all people who value competency over notions of "authenticity," the Palin pick has automatically disqualified McCain as a serious, responsible presidential candidate.

I'm not sure how you can say "in my opinion" and "all people" You can possibly believe that "all people... automatically disqualify McCain" If that is the case, why did his poll numbers jump with her addition. Doesn't measure up.

...and then dip after her terrible interviews? Irvine's point isn't reflective of the first days after her addition, but instead of the cumulative feeling after we've gotten to know everything we do about her.

I was going to write a long response to the original question of the thread, but instead I'll just jot down a few points.

I agree with Irvine in the sense that it was McCain's loss of integrity that has caused him to falter. His entire image has been built on the notion of his integrity, but when in the primaries his campaign essentially went bankrupt and he had no shot of winning the primaries, he realized that he had to give up his integrity and run a "tough campaign."

- Promised a clean campaign. Did not deliver. Worse still, delivered ads that many people called out as ridiculously false.
- Sarah Palin. Whether you like her or not, everybody and their brother knows that he preferred Lieberman.
- His "erratic" changes of messages and handling of the poor economic news.